{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1939", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 1939, "subject": "More lies", "messages": 6, "voices": 6, "first": "1999-11-08T16:49:42+00:00", "last": "1999-11-09T23:43:06+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "1999-11-08T16:49:42+00:00", "subject": "(urth) More lies", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Here are some occasions where Sev lied to the reader; that, or his perfect\nmemory failed him. The day after his elevation he saw the order for Thecla's\nexcruciation to begin on the following day. (I, XII)\n\n\"I could not sleep after that. Instead I went (for the last time, though I\ndid not know it) to the tomb in which I had played as a boy.\"\n\nThen (IV, XXXVI), as autarch, he returned to the tomb, \"The mausoleum where\nI had played as a boy stood as I had left it, its jammed door three-quarters\nshut.\", to retrieve the false coin given to him by Vodalus.\n\nAlso, compare the little \"charm\" he recounted both when he hid the coin and\nwhen he recovered it; they're not quite the same. One uses \"glass\", the\nother \"grass\".\n\nHere's another: Just after describing where he and his friends swam and\nbefore recounting his near-drowning (I, II), Sev says: \"I have chosen to\ndescribe all this now because I never went again after the day on which I\nsaved Vodalus.\" Then, when he is captain of apprentices (I, X), \"I took\nparties of apprentices to swim, thinking that to be my duty, though I could\nnever dive in deep water without fear.\" Both statements can't be true.\n\nDuring his \"conversation\" with the mandragora (IV, XXXV), another memory of\nhis infancy is awakened: \"I remember a time very long ago when I was cold\nand hungry. I lay upon my back, encircled by brown walls, and heard the\nsound of my own screams. Yes, I must have been an infant. Not old enough to\ncrawl, I think.\" Yet (I, II) elsewhere he says: \"From my earliest memory I\nremember all. That first recollection is of piling pebbles in the Old Yard.\"\nAny child old enough to pile pebbles is more than old enough to crawl. Note\nthe \"brown walls\"; the walls of the cells in the Matachin tower are gray, as\nnoted in the breast-feeding memory.\n\nNow, these are just a few examples I stumbled across without really trying,\nwhere Sev is either lying for no good reason that I can see, or, more likely\n(unless Wolfe is sloppier than I believe), where Wolfe is showing the reader\nthat Sev's memory is less than perfect--or both.\n\nRoy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Kevin J. Maroney", "address": "kmaroney at crossover.com" }, "date": "1999-11-08T18:16:57+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) More lies", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 04:49 PM 11/8/99 -0600, Roy wrote:\nNow, these are just a few examples I stumbled across without really trying,\nwhere Sev is either lying for no good reason that I can see, or, more likely\n(unless Wolfe is sloppier than I believe), where Wolfe is showing the reader\nthat Sev's memory is less than perfect--or both." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Or that Severian slips up. Remember that his memory is not perfectly\norganized; he describes in some detail the difficult process by which he\nreconstructs his memories. Even if his memory is perfect in the way he\ndescribes, it would not function in such a way as to protect him from\nmisstatements like those you listed. \n\nStill, that's an interesting list. \nWombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney at crossover.com\nKitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction\nhttp://ebbs.english.vt.edu/olp/nyrsf/nyrsf.html" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Matthew Malthouse", "address": "matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk" }, "date": "1999-11-09T02:20:03+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) More lies", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Kevin J. Maroney\" wrote:\n\nAt 04:49 PM 11/8/99 -0600, Roy wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Now, these are just a few examples I stumbled across without really trying,\nwhere Sev is either lying for no good reason that I can see, or, more likely\n(unless Wolfe is sloppier than I believe), where Wolfe is showing the reader\nthat Sev's memory is less than perfect--or both." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Or that Severian slips up. Remember that his memory is not perfectly\norganized; he describes in some detail the difficult process by which he\nreconstructs his memories. Even if his memory is perfect in the way he\ndescribes, it would not function in such a way as to protect him from\nmisstatements like those you listed." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "How many Sevs? How many different histories might Sev remember of\nhimself at different times?\n\nAnd how many memories may not be his own but conflated from the\nalzebo: regardles of when the events take place Sev is recounting\nthem to us from the position of Autarch, or even re-writing them\nabord Tzad's ship. if (and I'm not surre that I do) we accept\nmultiply dead Sev to produce the right one might not one Sev have\nrememberted brown walls and another grey ones? Once never again gone\nto the river and another done so?\n\nAs for the last time but I knew it not, that we certainly the last\ntime that Sev as he then was went to the tomb. I'd say that in\nlitterary terms it was fair comment for even without the\ndied/recreated stuff Sev the Autarch gojng to the tomb was so\ndifferent as to be another person.\n\nMatthew" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "William H. Ansley", "address": "wansley at warwick.net" }, "date": "1999-11-08T22:58:14+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) More lies", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Now, these are just a few examples I stumbled across without really trying,\nwhere Sev is either lying for no good reason that I can see, or, more likely\n(unless Wolfe is sloppier than I believe), where Wolfe is showing the reader\nthat Sev's memory is less than perfect--or both." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Poor Gene Wolfe! He can't make any mistakes at all. If he does he is either\naccused of being sloppy or strange theories start to blossom in the minds\nof members of this group. (Of course this happens all the time, anyway, and\nI certainly don't exclude my own mind.)\n\nBut we know he does make mistakes. He himself said so, in answer to a\nquestion asked him by members of this list.\n\nThen again, Wolfe brings this kind of comment on himself by being\nincredibly subtle, indirect and downright tricky.\n\nWilliam Ansley" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "1999-11-09T08:16:10+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) More lies", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mon, 8 Nov 1999, Roy C. Lackey wrote:\nHere are some occasions where Sev lied to the reader; that, or his perfect\nmemory failed him. The day after his elevation he saw the order for Thecla's\nexcruciation to begin on the following day. (I, XII)\n\n\"I could not sleep after that. Instead I went (for the last time, though I\ndid not know it) to the tomb in which I had played as a boy.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think \"for the last time\" here necessarily means \"the last time\never in my whole life.\" In context it just means that he didn't know at\nthe time that he was about to leave his home and would no longer be able\nto visit the tomb. \n\n-Rostrum" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "JMCAzurin", "address": "mikah at brewsoft.com" }, "date": "1999-11-09T23:43:06+00:00", "subject": "(urth) re: more lies", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy C. Lackey enumerated:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "...some occasions where Sev lied or his perfect memory failed\n\nThe day after his elevation he saw the order for Thecla's\nexcruciation to begin on the following day. (I, XII)\n\"I could not sleep after that. Instead I went (for the last time, though \nI\ndid not know it) to the tomb in which I had played as a boy.\"\n\nThen (IV, XXXVI), as autarch, he returned to the tomb" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " This doesn't have to be either an outright lie or a memory failure. You \nmight simply interpret the quote as, \"The day after my elevation, I went to \nthe tomb. Little did I know it would be my last such visit as a member in \ngood standing of the order of seekers of truth and penitence, for I was \nsoon to be exiled for facilitating Thecla's suicide.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Here's another: Just after describing where he and his friends swam and\nbefore recounting his near-drowning (I, II), Sev says: \"I have chosen to\ndescribe all this now because I never went again after the day on which I\nsaved Vodalus.\" Then, when he is captain of apprentices (I, X), \"I took\nparties of apprentices to swim, thinking that to be my duty, though I \ncould\nnever dive in deep water without fear.\" Both statements can't be true." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " He might just mean he never went for a fun afternoon swim with his \nfriends again. He says he had to take the prentices, but the character of \nthat sort of outing would be different. As Sev says he thinks it to be his \n_duty._\n\nMikah\n\n- Are you crying?\n- No, I'm bleeding." } ] } ] }